Arrowhead Aware of Various Helldivers Issues, Working on Fixes

Arriving earlier this week on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita (here’s our review), Helldivers has been experiencing a variety of issues, prompting developer Arrowhead Studios to give an update on what they’re doing to fix them.

Taking to Reddit, Arrowhead commented on the wiped progression issue, which is related to the controller dropping its connection to the game. Then, when you reconnect, the game spawns your avatar before it loads your old save. If you let the game finish its save, it could result in lost progress.

We’ll have to wait until patch 1.03 for this specific issue of wiped progress to be fixed, but Arrowhead detailed a way you can prevent it:

Make sure your controller has a full charge when you start playing. Don’t switch controllers if you battery is running low, just connect it to a cable, and wait until you are on the bridge and done with saving before switching to another controller.

If this issue should occur, restarting the game without saving will cause it to try and download the cloud save next time you start it up. This may solve the issue, but will not work if you have managed to save since you got reset.

Next up, Arrowhead talked about being unable to find your friends’ games. This issue is most common when trying to find someone on another platform, such as between PS4 and PS3, and it comes from the fact that cross-play is a learning experience.

They add:

What we are doing about it: We are looking at improving the discovery for friends, especially cross-platform. This is unfortunately not an easy fix and will take a while for us to sort out. I’m very sorry for the inconvenience and we thank you for your patience.

What you can do about it: Setting your matchmaking filters to closely match what your friend is currently playing seems to increase the likelihood of them showing up. You can also both try to find the same public game and both join it.

For those of you who can’t fire full auto or fire weapons at all, Arrowhead says this is caused by faulty DualShock 4 controllers that don’t register full inputs, and the fact that they use a high threshold for full auto on weapons. This was done to make it possible for people to fire single shots and full auto on the same button.

While they suggest you exchange your DualShock 4 for another one without the input issues, here’s what Arrowhead is doing to fix the problem on their end:

We are implementing an option that multiplies all analogue outputs of the controller as to simulate a properly functioning controller. This should help anyone with a faulty controller to play the game better, but will have the downside of providing less precision in movement and fire.

Arrowhead also addressed a few more issues:

If your save won’t transfer between your PS4, PS3, or PS Vita, it’s due to the cloud save timing out. In patch 1.02, Arrowhead is increasing the timeout to improve the chances of getting a response from the PSN while it is under heavy load. A more permanent solution is being looked at, but the fix in 1.02 should improve things a bit.

A fix is in progress for those who are kicked from a game at mission end that will make sure you at least receive the XP and samples you have earned, while also offering a disconnect message. To help them out, report any specific conditions you encountered that might cause this.

If you unlocked a new weapon but can’t find it, Arrowhead points out that weapons are sorted by class. “You can see other weapons in the same class by scrolling to the right when selecting primary weapon.”

Arrowhead admits they were a little off when balancing the galactic campaign, so they will continuously monitor it to “make sure that the community has a fair chance of winning the campaign.”

A fix for people only being able to find full games is scheduled for patch 1.03, but if you tighten your search criteria, it should help alleviate this in the meantime.

While Arrowhead implemented a reputation system to stop people from being jerks, some have found creative ways to abuse the game, resulting in you sometimes getting kicked right before extraction and receiving nothing. Arrowhead’s looking into this right now and they “hope to fix the most abusive situations and improve the playing experience.”

What’s your experience been like with Helldivers? Which platform(s) are you playing it on?